


Becalmed

by lightningwaltz



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Disguised Gods, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Sex, F/F, Power Imbalance, Trauma, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 17:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5014384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She’s wise enough to know that the forest is not a place for her. If anything momentous is to happen, she wants it to happen under the clear view of the heavens. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becalmed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



> My wonderful recipient merryghoul wanted fic that focused on Iphigenia and Artemis after Iphigenia is rescued from Aulis. She was also interested in the theory that Iphigenia was transformed into the goddess Hecate. While doing research, I ended up re-reading some of the myths about gods disguising themselves as humans. I wondered what would happen if that was how Artemis and Iphigenia had met. And THEN I ended up researching the historical context of the Trojan war and ended up getting into all the research about the collapse of the bronze age in general. The tl;dr version is that the historical Trojan war seems to have been part of the socio-economic collapse of MANY concurrent bronze age civilizations, including the one the House of Atreus would have belonged to if they had existed. Although I don't claim anything like historical accuracy, the historical context kind of ended up merging with the mythological story in my mind. 
> 
> And so basically all of these ideas kind of collided together in my mind and really, really inspired me. This fic absolutely took on a life of its own. Thank you for the wonderful prompts and letter, merryghoul. I hope you enjoy!
> 
>  **A general warning about content:** This fic deals pretty heavily in the theme of power imbalance between humans and mortals. In addition, for part of the fic Iphigenia believes that Artemis is a human slave. In addition, this fic deals with war and trauma in general. I would suggest treading carefully if you dislike these sorts of themes.

Iphigenia never forgets that she will always be woven into the House of Atreus. This will be true, even when there is more ichor in her veins than blood. Even when the rest of them are all laid to rest in the earth; a silent tomb after a scream-soaked end.

So, here she is, close enough to the beginning as to make no difference. A daughter of a king, sneaking by night to her family’s altar. She is wrapped up in her darkest garb, and she has not caught the attention of any war party or god. Not yet.

Artemis is best worshipped in the woods, when one is curled up in the bough of a tree, scrutinizing the stars. She invokes the sensation of seeing a bear, or some other wild thing, and suppressing the urge to run. This is where she should be praised. Iphigenia has no chance of scaling the palace complex’s high walls on her own, however. This prayer is like a weight on her rib cage, the pain of it stealing respite from her soul. 

She kneels in front of the altar. The scent of old blood fills the area like invisible smoke. It is a cloud-streaked night, but silvery rays of light peak out, anyway. Iphigenia bathes in them, sanctifying herself in Artemis’s radiance. 

“Please,” she says, and stops. 

That one word is at the center of this entreaty. A single word, and one that encompasses her desires stripped bare. The wish to see pink return to Chrysothemis’s cheeks. To see her grow tall, marry, have children, and find reason to smile every day of a long life. 

“Please, Lady,” Iphigenia tries again. “You bring sudden death, but you also bring sudden recovery. Chrysothemis is young, and a maiden. She is one of yours, even if we live behind these walls. I need her. Electra needs an older sister, when I am married and gone. They will need each other if mother dies giving birth to the child she carries.”

Silence. Emptiness. 

“I have nothing to offer you. We live in a drought, our crops barely grow, and the best game leaves to seek better food. If I spilled blood on this altar, the loss of the animal would be missed. Father loves us, but he won’t make a sacrifice just for our sakes. So all I have to offer is my words, if that’s what will make Chrysothemis well.”

There is an absence of sound that is so all-encompassing that Iphigenia fears it is the answer.

“I’ll even offer myself.”

Iphigenia’s knees hurt from kneeling, and her heart pounds at this rash promise. This had never been her intention, but as it pours out of her, there’s something inevitable about it. Iphigenia wonders what would happen if Artemis came to her, in all her ferocious glory. Extended a hand, and said ‘is that so? You’re mine now.’

She waits for fear, but instead she senses the shape of that idea- that abduction- and it crashes like waves over her soul. Iphigenia feels herself wrapped in the scents and sounds of the forest, free from her sister’s sick room, free from rumors of marriage negotiations, free from wondering what to do if her mother dies or her father is lost at sea. Free from all these worries that collect in her temples, in a pincer-like headache. It would be a death in exchange for a sister’s life, yes, but for a blessed moment she doesn’t think of her family at all. 

Rain melts down from the sky, no more than a fragile mist. It dusts her hands and coats her cheeks. It’s the touch of a lover (a kind of touch she has never known, but one she has imagined all the same.) She can almost hear the parched ground gulp it down. 

* 

In the morning, Clytemnestra finds her dozing by Chrysothemis’s sick bed. 

Iphigenia is on a pallet on the floor, her head resting on her arm. When her mother tugs her back into consciousness, she wants to scream at the encroaching world to shatter and never re-form. 

She’s also grateful, because what if this is the end of everything? 

“What happened? Is she-”

There’s a finger on her lips. “Chrysothemis is still alive. You can see for yourself.” 

Iphigenia looks and, yes, her sister is resting. Every rise and fall of her chest inspires praise to Artemis. 

Clytemnestra is very quiet, her hand resting on heavily pregnant belly. She looked like this, too, while carrying Electra. Iphigenia can’t remember a world where she existed without her siblings. Even though there must have been such a time. She knows she was born less than a year after her father killed Clytemnestra’s previous husband. 

Iphigenia knows she is the offspring of war. 

“Let’s go to your room. Her condition is unlikely to change, today.” As Clytemnestra says this, there’s a coaxing note in her voice. It fills Iphigenia with a guilt she can’t quite name. That’s why she assents. 

. “Has something happened?” She asks, once they’ve left her sister’s room. It’s not unreasonable to wonder this. Her father returned, yesterday. Often, the full accounting of his new treasures took days at a time.

“I have decided to assign a new slave to you.” Clytemnstra, as always, sweeps down the hall. She rarely stops for anything. “A personal slave. That’s been long overdue.”

“Oh.” 

Whenever she is wounded, Iphigenia can stare down at the wound without flinching. She attended Electra’s birth, and even helped clean up after. She participates in sacrifices, and can keep a straight face at the scent of offal. 

But whenever her parents are gifted with a passel of slaves, Iphigenia tastes bile in her throat. Their captives are often scrubbed raw and clean before being lined up before the king and queen, but Iphigenia can smell their distant cities on them. She can smell the roads they traveled, and how they must have watered the crossroads with their weeping. The salt from their tears must have sunk into the ground. 

Maybe that’s why nothing can thrive these days.

And Iphigenia always remembers that her own mother, while never called a slave, was likewise ripped from her home. Clytemnestra never speaks of it, but gossip grows like mold and weeds. As a child, Iphigenia had learned about her mother’s first husband. She’d learned about the brother she would never know. The brother who would always be a baby and someone else’s memory.

The Achaeans surrounded themselves with impenetrable walls, but this was a world that upended people, and scattered them to far lands. She often wonders which if there are former princesses amongst the women that scrubbed their floors. Iphigenia has never had the courage to ask.

She speaks none of this aloud but, somehow, Clytemnestra hears her. She doesn’t smile, but her eyes are almost pitying.

“This is unpleasant, but there are many unpleasant things in this world,” Clytemnestra says.” It’s up to you to decide whether to make things better, or whether you make things worse. You will be a queen someday. The head of a household such of this. That will include overseeing the training of slaves. Yes, it’s true. Don’t look so anguished. Until now, all the women that serve you have come prepared to work for you without question. Things will be different in your husband’s house.” 

“I think I understand.” 

Her mother does not wait to introduce the two of them (and why would she?) When Iphigenia enters her bed chamber, for a moment or two she feels like she’s come to the wrong place. She hasn’t slept here in a long time. The strange woman by her bed carries herself like she owns the room. Like she owns the world. 

This is not uncommon in some new slaves. They wear their dignity for what it is; the only thing they’re permitted to retain. 

Iphigenia must speak first, so she does. “Are you hurt in any way?” It’s an unexpected question. It’s a question straight from the sick room. 

There are pockets of Minoans all throughout the Mycenaean’s lands, and this woman has the look of one of them. When she speaks, though, her words filter around an Anatolian accent. 

“No, I have no injuries.” She doesn’t sound shocked, or annoyed at Iphigenia’s pretense. There’s no fear, either, and later Iphigenia will realize that should have been the first hint. “It is kind of you to ask, but no one here has harmed me.” 

_The fact that you are here means my family has harmed you._ “My name is Iphigenia.” 

“Yes I have been told.” A hint of brazenness Iphigenia finds that she likes that.

“What should I call you?”

That makes the woman think, but that is not a shock. It must be a hard choice between sullying the name held when one was free, or taking on a new name entirely. 

“My name is Britomartis.” 

“That’s a nice name,” she says, wondering if her voices sounds as dull as her spirit. “It sounds Minoan.” 

The slave woman has no answer. She just lowers her eyes. Waiting for orders, probably. Maybe waiting for someone to slit her throat. It’s hard to tell. All Iphigenia knows is that no one will come save this slave, if Iphigenia chooses to be cruel. Clytemnestra would punish her severely, but that would not help Britomartis if she is killed. And no one in the world would fault Iphigenia. 

The woman is newly arrived, and probably has no knowledge of the palace, and their grounds. Though Iphigenia could ask that of a head slave- even though it’s expected- she realizes that she has no desire to stay in this room. She is exhausted, but there is no desire for sleep.

“Come with me,” she says, at least. There’s no need to ostentatiously demand it. Demands are woven into their relationship, like spider webs strung between poisonous plants. Impossible to see, but a snare all the same.

Iphhigenia leads Britomartis from room to room, curtly explaining the purpose of each. Britomartis nods, and, on the rare instances she asks a question, she is intelligent and perceptive. When she has shown Britomartis most of the areas of the palace that are open to her, she hesitates, realizing she has passed by Chrysothemis’s room. 

“There’s a task I need to complete,” she mutters. “Let’s go outside.” 

The sun is as sharp as a spear, glinting like electrum in the sky. This is Apollo’s realm, right now. Artemis has thoroughly fled. Iphigenia laughs, remembering her certainty that the goddess must have heard her prayers. The enchanted luster of the previous evening has burned away like dew. 

She leads Britomartis to a cache of flowers. Iphigenia has long held a knack for memorizing the purposes of plants, and none of the healing ones have worked on her sister. These flowers can’t be eaten, nor do they have medicinal properties. Thus, even in this time of want, they have been allowed to grow and flourish a bit too well. But they are beautiful and colorful, as they sway in the wind. Iphigenia gathers some into her skirt, and hands the rest to Britomartis. 

“I am taking these to my sister,” she says at last. “She is… very ill.” 

This is the first time Britomaris has shown any interest in Iphigenia, and somehow it feels like a victory. “In what way?” Again, her eyes remain lowered. “If I am permitted to ask about such a thing.” That moment of deference makes her sound like a bad actor in a poorly designed play. 

“Yes, you can ask. I’m going to have you help me with her, after all,” The words just slip out. “My sister has been sick for a very long while. At first it seemed like a simple cold, but her symptoms just get worse and worse. No one knows why. Our priest can’t divine the reason in any entrails.” _She is wasting away over time and I don’t know what to do_.

“Will she die?” 

It’s an almost ferociously foolhardy question from anyone. Even Clytemnestra flits around the subject, talking about Chrysothemis being “still alive” and not naming the opposite state of being. Iphigenia should be angry. She is definitely fearful. But, somehow, this acknowledgement of a likely just makes Britomartis is an ally. It’s as though they are strategizing together, planning a course of action just like her father plans his wars.

“No, of course not,” Iphigenia says, even though it must sound like a hollow boast. “Until she recovers, I want to bring her beautiful things.” 

*

Iphigenia is helping with the inventory of her father’s latest battle plunder, when she comes across the little statue of a goddess with a cat-shaped head. It’s in the Egyptian style. Her father has never waged war on the Egyptians, or their allies, but their property ends up behind the walls of Argos anyway. Pathwayss pile up on paths, crossroads pile up on crossroads, sewing together an extensive trading network. Iphigenia has seen nothing beyond Achaea, buttThese items are like whispers from another life. 

She turns the statue around and around, seeing where the carving of eyes has been smoothed away by time and use. She images the figuring can see into her soul, anyway. Britomartis- her constant shadow- leans in to examine the idol as well. 

“You like that, don’t you?” her father says. “You can keep it. I don’t mind.” 

It’s often been this way, with her father. He is quick to temper, but also quick to generosity with his children. He is always sending them the choices bits of the meal during feasts (back when they could feast.) When she was younger, and never sure what she liked, he would bring her designated gifts. Now, he often waits for her to decide, as if he learns more about her from her choices. When he says they are done for the moment, Iphigenia smiles, thanks him, and practically leaps back to Chrysothemis. Britomartis follows. Although Iphigenia is nearly running, her slave never seems harried. She never seems to rush. 

Her sister has bad days, and she has good days. When Iphigenia places the statue by the pile of flowers, one of her better hours. Or, at least, it’s not a bad one.

“A gift for you,” Iphigenia says. 

“Let me guess,” Chrysothemis says. Her smile is bloodless and wan, but at least she’s not in a fever. “You received it doing inventory work.”

“It’s a gift from father,” Iphigenia says. It’s true, technically.

“People like to reward sickness,” Chrystothemis says, reaching over, grabbing onto one of the flowers Iphigenia brought her. It breaks away in a flurry of browning petals. “If only I had known this when I was training so hard to be the perfect maiden.”

“Chrysothemis…” Iphigenia sighs. 

“You sound like mother, just when she tells me to stop complaining.” 

“Well. You are being rather maudlin.” Iphigenia knows she would be just the same, if she was staring down death. Anyway, Chrysothemis has always been like this; sardonic, brash, with hints of sweetness. If she died, it would be like a torch going out on a moonless night. You might be angry at sparks of ash stinging your skin, but you would regret the darkness. 

“Sorry, it’s hard to keep from being awful.” Chrysothemis continues on before Iphigenia can absolve her. She taps her fingernail against the idol. “That’s an endearing goddess. I do like her.”

“It’s Bastet, I’m sure,” Britomartis says, and Chyrosthemis jumps. Both she and Iphigenia jump. Somehow it’s as surprising as if the statue began to speak. 

“What do you know of her?” Iphigenia asks unaccountably pleased. This is always her reaction, whenever Britomartis offers some small fragment of herself.

“She is to the Egyptians what Artemis is to you.” 

“Similar to Artemis, huh? You know, I talked with Calchas about that, once. Isn’t it strange how all these stories of the gods sound somewhat similar, no matter where they come from?” 

Before all this, Chrysothemis had helped tending to the sacrificial animals. She had a knack for reading entrails, according to Calchas. Agamemnon and Clytemnestra had had many arguments about whether they should allow her to train this ability. It was not a wifely skills, but soothsayers always found a place in the world. These debates had continued until Chrysothemis had fallen ill.

“What did Calchas say?”

“The gods do not have the same kind of permanence that we have. We are attached to mortal flesh, and therefore can only exist in a single location. The gods can be in many places at once. It’s possible Artemis _is_ Bastet.” 

It’s a rush of excited words, and they tumble into a series of violent coughs. Iphigenia is about to call for help, when Chryosthemis stops as violently as she began. 

“I like the Egyptians gods. Not more than ours of course.” Chrysothemis’s ragged raises her voice on that last sentence, as though to keep from offending any listening deities. “I think my favorite must be Heqet though.”

“Who?”

“Like Bastet, here, she has the face of an animal. Though she gets to be a frog. Isn’t that wonderful?” 

“If foreign gods are actually our gods, then which of our gods is Heqet?”

“Actually, I don’t know. I don’t think she has one.” 

 

*

The shouts of the returning hunting party waft up to Iphigenia’s chambers. First, they are a distant buzz, like an insect whining in her ear. Then they are riotous. It makes her rise to her feet. She can’t locate the source of her distress, at first. She simply looks at Britomartis (who is as disinterested in her spinning as ever), and tries to find answers in that face. In those dark eyes that never give anything back. 

“They sound happy,” Iphigenia says, after a moment. Yes, that’s it. Lately, the aftermath of a hunt rarely produces laughter and boasts that echo across her home’s cyclopean walls. The men often leave and return in meager silence, their footfalls over sunbaked, brittle soil the loudest sound by far. 

This racket is like an unfinished song from her childhood, and she wants to rush to meet it.

“Let’s go see what’s happening,” she says, barely feeling her veil as she covers her head. Britomartis follows like a wisp of wind. 

When she reaches the courtyard, she sees their catch, before she sees any of the men. Even her father fades to insignificance; a king diminished by the presence of an animal. But sometimes that was the way of the world.

The deer is as pale as the whites of Clytemnestra’s eyes. As pale as a petal crushed beneath sandals. She evinces none of the panicky fear of her kind, but there is nothing simple or drugged about her hard stare. She is a beacon amidst all this tumult. 

The chord around her neck is obscenely obvious, It reminds her of the twisted blue veins that crawl up Calchas’s wrists. 

“Iphigenia!” Her name is a delighted roar in her father’s throat. “Come see what we’ve brought home.” 

As always, her father’s retainers part before her, like wheat falling before the blade. Something about being a woman attached to Agamemnon’s name has lent Iphigenia a kind of luster, despite her believing she has done nothing to deserve acclaim. She realizes her dress is as pale as the deer, and she tries to let the thought disintegrate. 

No one looks at Britomartis (the ones who leer at her have forgotten to do so, even) but as they approach the deer, Iphigenia feels her slave’s shadow on her. It’s like a second veil. 

“She’s glorious,” Iphigenia says, effusive where usually she mimics her mother’s cool reserve in public. Up close, she can see the deer’s eyes clearly. They are like two inky stones, pressed into elegant marble. 

“She was difficult to track,” her father says, “it took the better part of today. I think anyone would say it’s worth it, though.” 

Iphigenia’s fingers rest on the deer’s back. “What will you do with her?” 

Agamemnon gives her the look he sometimes gets before asking Clytemnestra to translate for a foreign diplomat. Like he wants to understand her, but the barrier is far too great. 

“She’s intended for sacrifice.” 

Iphigenia brushes her knuckles over the deer’s neck. She is warm. Warm with the blood below her skin, the blood that will spill over an altar. None of the men can see her face, but her father orders them away anyway. He issues them tasks that will distract them from Iphigenia.

And then, when they are alone, he turns to her. “What is it?” The question makes her straighten her back. He sounds like this whenever consulting with her mother, and that makes her steady herself. Whenever Agamemnon and Clytemnestra confer, lives and deaths hinge in the balance. 

“She’s beautiful, but that’s what concerns me. “She might be protected by Artemis.” It’s so strange to have this conversation, with sunlight wending its way into the tendrils surrounding her face. They are not in Artemis’s realm.

Her concerns soundsso young and superstitious, but her father doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t tell her to go back to her sewing or her plants, the way he does when he’s angry with her.

“I thought about, too. Your instincts are good. But I spoke about it with Calchas.”

That should be the end of the matter, and it would be for the rest of her family. But, for her sisters- for her mother- Iphigenia will raise the questions that they might never ask. 

“What did Calchas say?”

“That our kingdom rises and falls based on the fate of this deer.” 

Not for the first time, Iphigenia wonders about the seer’s intentions. Sometimes his prophecies are clearer that a cloudless sky. Sometimes they are murky things that scatter in all directions. Her father prefers the latter. He can interpret them in his favor. 

She looks into the deer’s face again, and this time the absence of fear is an ominous thing. Like a lyre that’s been strung incorrectly, filling the air with sour notes. The animal’s stare is human, resigned. There is no tension in her body, no preparing to flee. Britomartis, forgotten, pats the deer on the back. She, too, wears serenity like a second set of clothing. 

“I think you should be careful, still.” 

Agamemnon’s stare is thoughtful and benign. It’s the look of a man who’s already made up his mind. He had made up his mind before he spoke to Calchas. Iphigenia realizes this now. 

“Your room is on the highest levels of our palace,” he says at last. “What do you see when you look outside?”

 _Death, meager waves, stagnation as far as the eyes can see._ “Our great walls.”

Her father snorts. “You aren’t a supplicant seeking my favor. Try again.”

“Mostly I just see fields of brown grass.” Those same fields had been fecund and green, once. Whenever she had traveled with her parents she had been enraptured by the dew that clung to her feet, and the scent of growing things.

“This is the third year of famine, Iphigenia. We can’t shoulder a fourth. Our stores are running out. Battle plunder keeps us wealthy, but it can only be done so many times a year.”

“And if we eat all our grain, it’s not like we can eat our gold.” Iphigenia’s voice is soft, but it does make her father laugh. It’s a brittle sound, but amused enough. 

“I’m taking my chances. If the deer isn’t sacred to Artemis, then surely her sacrifice will please the gods. Maybe things will start to grow again. If not…” Her father shrugs. “Then maybe Artemis will kill us quicker than starvation.”

Iphigenia holds her breath so she can’t gasp. Behind Agamemnon, Britomartis has gone very still. For a second, she looks like a shade escaped from Hades realm.

“Father…” Iphigenia wonders what would happen if she lay in the dirt. Touched his beard and held his leg. “I’m still wary about this.” It was worse than that. She tries to focus, but terror is like ash in her mouth. 

He looks at her for a long time, and then he turns as quickly as a man who has stared at the sun for too long. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice is ragged. Worn thin by all the Argive lives he must protect. “I hate worrying you. But this needs to happen. Remember, Minos’s kingdom fell because he _didn’t_ sacrifice to Poseidon.” 

“Then let me do the sacrifice.” _Argos can lose me. It can’t lose you._

“No.” Her father says. “No, I will not permit it.” 

He walks away at a normal pace, but he still seems to want to escape her. Iphigenia stares at her folded hands. 

“Am I being a fool?” She asks Britomartis, and doesn’t know what she wants. Praise for her foresight? Assurances that nothing will happen?

“It’s always good to consider the will of the gods.” 

*

The deer dies on the altar, as her father said she would. Often, Iphigenia is the one to put laurel wreathes on the sacrifices, but this time she is not allowed to do that. Agamemnon does it himself, and everyone pretends not to see the way his hands shake from rabid hopefulness. The royal family feasts well on the offerings, but Iphigenia is not hungry that night. She ends up giving her portion to Britomartis, when no one is paying attention.

Soon after, Agamemnon leaves for Menelaus’s household. They meet most years, to engage in ceremonies, and conversations that shape the course of the kingdoms clustered around the sea. Though Clytemnestra is heavily pregnant she travels with him. Iphigenia is left behind, to run their household. Every day she feels as though she plays at being queen. She wonders when her deceit will be unmasked. The slaves have Electra in hand, but every day her sister asks where their parents have gone. She is just old enough to notice and fear these things.

Iphigenia is angry that they would leave Chrysothemis, and that anger transforms in desperation on the day her sister is consumed by a fever. The illness worsens by the hour and, though she is afraid Chrysothemis will die alone, Iphigenia returns to Artemis’s shrine. 

“Please,” she whispers, no longer able to form more than that word. She is prostrate, praying more to the ground, then the sky. “Please, please, please.” 

Then she stands up, brushes herself off. Britomartis’s face is tight, like it’s been carved from stone. She’s as shuttered as a grave. Iphigenia wants to shake her, slap her, shock her until all her closely-guarded mysteries scatter like ashes in the hearth. 

“Tell me.” She clutches onto Britomartis’s shoulder. “Whatever you happen to be thinking. Tell me right now.” It’s the tone of voice her father uses when ordering his men onward. 

Iphigenia sees no gentleness in Britomartis’s face, but the sunset behind her stains everything pomegranate red. It frames them both, trapping the two of them in a hazy, bright world.

“I have seen illness like this before,” Britomartis says. “I think that… before the morning comes, your sister will recover or she will die. It’s in Artemis’s hands. Are you prepared for that?” 

Iphigenia waits for devastation, or fear. Instead, she is _ready_. She wants to draw a sword, or slide greaves onto her legs. She wants to don one of her mother’s electrum-laden headdresses or ornate outfits. Iphigenia has none of these things, so she grabs Britomartis’s cold hand instead. 

“Thank you,” she says, earning a nod in response. 

They make the ascent up to the palace, up the stairs to Chrysothemis’s room, and up into the war. 

Britomartis’s predictions prove accurate. The moon must be high above them, when Iphigenia’s sister slips into a delirium. Her skin scalds the touch, even as the girl clutches sweat-soaked blankets to her chest. She shivers, and nearly topples out of bed. She tosses her head this way and that, until her hair tangles like that of a madwoman in a tragic tale. Her enduring illness reaches its apotheosis, at long last. 

The worst moments of all come when Chrysothemis’s moans shape into words. 

“I’m so tired, I’m so tired.” 

“I know, love, I know you are.” Iphigenia swipes a rag over her sister’s sorehead. It replaces perspiration with cool, clean water. 

“Just let me die.” 

What a horrible thing to hear from such a young voice. 

“No.” Her voice is a growl, and realizes she understand battle lust now. “I would give you the whole world, if possible. But this is the one thing I won’t allow. You’re going to live.” 

Chrysothemis howls in Iphigenia’s face, and it’s impossible to know whether her fury is aimed at her illness or her sister. Iphigenia knows these screams must carry, and she hopes Electra can’t hear them.

The night will be the longest of Iphigenia’s life, thus far. Chrysothemis’s fever climbs and climbs before it can descend. It has its own subtle rules. It effects everyone in the room, until Iphigenia’s marrow must be aflame with desperation. Her father once told her that, if one is startled by a bear in the deep forest, the only way to survive is to shout until it flees. No man can outrun one. So Iphigenia shouts back, whenever Chrysothemis’s illness makes her beg for death. 

Despite this, the fever breaks in a moment of quiet, when Iphigenia’s voice is gone. Everything ends, when Britomartis’s touches Chrysothemis’s wrist. 

“You’ve done so well,” she says, and Iphigenia wonders if Britomartis has ever sounded so lovely, so certain. And after this, Chrysothemis smiles. Chrysothemis sleeps. 

“Is she…” It hurts to talk. There must be a knife in Iphigenia’s throat. 

“She’s breathing. She will live. It’s over.” 

Iphigenia touches her sister’s skin, and though it is clammy, it is warm with life. 

The next few moments are a blur of changed bedding and watery dawn radiance. Iphigenia knows Chrysothemis will survive, but it’s hard for her to trust that. She only consents to leave when a new coterie of slaves arrive. They handle Chrysothemis with the utmost of care. 

When they are in the hallway, and no one is there, Britomartis wraps an arm around Iphgenia’s hip. It flouts convention, but she rests against her companion anyway. She leans into that strength all the way to her bedchamber. 

“It’s alright. I have you.”

“You d”

When they are shielded from all prying eyes, Iphigenia turns and turns, facing Britomartis. She blooms up into a kiss. She has never done this before, but nothing about this feels novel or new. It is inevitable, even when they fall onto the bed. Britomartis always looks so soft; the gentle curls in her hair, the knowing curve of her smiles, the way all clothes seem to hang loose on her, like she’s wearing moonlight. And yet in Iphigenia’s arms, there’s nothing soft about her. Her cheekbones are as hard Iphigenia’s hands as curve of a bow, and her arms are as taut as a bowstring. When she touches Britomartis’s naked back, it is as smooth and lethal as the broad side of a sword. Britomartis grabs Iphigenia’s hands, holding them above her head, and it’s impossible to wiggle away. She tries, and tries again, and hopes that Britomartis never lets her go. 

And then there’s the knee that Britomartis shoves between Iphigenia’s legs. Later still, the calloused fingers inside of Iphigenia. It’s all so solid and foreign, and it’s so simple to rock against it again and again, like a breaking wave. Until she _breaks_ like a wave.

The pleasure of it all crashes all over Iphigenia, cleaning her, remaking her. When her own tears trail down her face, they taste like fresh water. 

“Britomartis,” she sighs after. Almost happy, almost free. 

“That’s not my birth name.” Somehow, this admission is as beautiful a gift as what just happened. 

“Tell me it. Someday.” _Please_. 

“You ask a lot of me.” There’s a hand brushing hair out of Iphigenia’s face. “But I am always glad to give to you.” 

*

Britomartis is permanently moved from her pallet on the floor to sharing Iphigenia’s bed. Their moments of leisure time are rare, stolen, conducted in shadows and arcs of shimmering moonlight. Sometimes they make love, and sometimes they lie side-by-side, holding onto one another, barely talking. It’s sweeter than honey, and Iphigenia tries to convince herself that Britomartis’s smiles and touches are real and unaffected by duty or compulsion. Iphigenia has never had a lover before, but she’s also had very few friends.

She’s in bed when a messenger finds her, and tells her that her parents are returning to the Argos. 

“They are back sooner than I expected,” she murmurs.

Britomartis is worrying at the corner of her lips, and her face is ashen. Iphigenia wonders if she is frightened of Clytemnestra or Agamemenon. 

“Don’t worry,” she says, cupping Britomartis’s face with her hands. 

“Yes, you’ll make things right.”

The two of them kiss and kiss, until Iphigenia reluctantly tears herself away. She has to arrange the household to greet her royal parents. There are meals to plan, carpets to unroll, surfaces to clean. Chrysothemis, at last able to move freely, throws herself into it with gleeful abandon. Strength and vitality have seeped back into her sister and it’s like winter becoming summer. It’s as strange as a corpse becoming a girl again. Iphigenia finds herself monitoring her sister, remembering their ancestor Pelops. How the gods pieced him back together and how, according to family lore, he came back otherworldly and wrathful and wrong. So far Chrysothemis evinces none of that, and Iphigenia has decided to breathe with ease. 

When Agamemnon and Clytemnestra return, their eyes leap to Chrysothemis. Then they grin in relief, and Iphigenia notes that smiles seem like foreign things on their face. There is a slave standing next to Clytemnestra, and she carries a squishy, red-face baby boy. Iphigenia adores him on sight. If he lives, this son will kill her chances of becoming the heir to Argos, but Iphigenia is too relieved to resent any of her siblings. 

Britomartis is at her side, and Iphigenia is tempted to squeeze her hand in excitement.

Her parents’ greetings are terse, distracted, and when the expected niceties have been observed, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra both ascend the royal dais. Their faces are mask-like, kingly. It’s how Iphigenia hopes she looked when meeting her future husband’s family. Now that her father has a son, that day will be soon. For her and for Chrysothemis alike. 

(Iphigenia really wants to grab onto Britomartis’s hand.)

Then her father speaks, and all her thoughts scatter. Her whole world changes.

“While my queen and I hosted by my brother Menelaus, we bore witness to some of the worst treachery that has been visited upon the Achaeans.” Her father has his commandeering voice. “While under the bonds of hospitality, Alexandros, son of King Priam of Troy abducted my brother’s wife. All the Achaean kings are bound by an oath to my brother Menelaus, brokered by Odysseus, son of Laertes. I am bound by blood to Menelaus. These are difficult times and those who trespass against hospitality offend both gods and men. Troy has hoarded too much wealth, despite being a decrepit and weakened empire. We will return my queen’s sister to her husband, and we will take the treasures of Troy.”

Though the hall has been as silent as a grave, the cessation of her father’s rallying speech inspires roars from men and women, the free and the enslaved. Chrysothemis and Electra join in. Even Iphigenia lends her voices to theirs. She cheers for the return of this aunt that she has never met. 

Iphigenia wonders if this is what the battlefield sounds like. She looks into Britomartis’s eyes and they reflect nothing back. 

*

Though it is hardly the most auspicious time for marriage, the summons from Aulis don’t surprise Clytemnestra.

“You are old enough,” her mother says. “And I suspect your father wants to set sail knowing he might return to grandchildren.” 

Iphigenia has been consumed by thoughts of entering a foreign household. Every time she travels, she notices that every family has its own private laws and customs. They beseech the gods with slightly different prayers. Some welcome their sons’ wives with open arms, while others treat them as begrudged strangers. 

Her mother’s words remind her that she will be expected to lay with this man. She tries to picture what she knows about the coupling of men and women, but it only takes her back to fond and recent memories of Britomartis. Memories that make her cheeks redden, memories that make her wonder if people can see the way pleasure shoots through her like an arrow. 

“Achilles…” Her mother muses. “I have heard strange things about his family, but sometimes gossip becomes distorted. My family-" A slow pause, as the name Helen is not spoken aloud. "My has been subject to that as well. You seem pretty excited, my dear.” That last endearment is friendly, teasing. A distraction from all that has shifted and changed.

Iphigenia nods, and nods again, then scurries away to the sound of her mother’s laughter.

When she’s in her room, though, she puts her palms to her eyes and shivers. Britomartis pulls her hands down, even though that is incredibly bold. The two women stare at each other in silence. 

“I will have to consummate this marriage,” she whispers. “I’m sorry.” Apologizing to a slave is strange, and a small part of her balks at it. A much larger part of her takes comfort from the naked affection in Britomartis’s eyes.

“I understand. It is nice of you to think of me.”

“It’s not that.” Iphigenia draws Britomartis closer, wondering if this is one of the last times she gets to hold her. Will Clytemnestra permit her to take her to her new household? Will Peleus allow her to have things of her own? Or will every aspect of her dowry be subsumed into his household? 

On impulse, she drops to her knees. She kisses Britomartis’s thighs, and pushes her skirts up, before burying her face between those legs. 

“Oh, I see. You want to stay with me forever. I’m so glad.” Britomartis sighs, and sighs again. Then she seems to lose track of speech entirely.

*

In the end, it seems as though Iphigenia will be the first to die for this war. In Aulis, the windless air is leaden, stagnant. So are the things Agamemnon says. 

Iphigenia fights back, of course. She launches her own counter-strikes, in the form of crying and pleading. 

But then she accedes to peaceful surrender. Kings often do, when drawing out the war will cause more harm. Even in the case of victory.

Clytemnestra’s tears cease as violently as they started. They’re still wet on her face, when she says she will oversee certain wedding rituals. Agamemnon starts to protest, but with one stony look from his wife, and he stops. 

This wedding to death will commence as Clytemnestra dictates. 

This domestic sphere is Clytemnestra’s realm, and her exceptional grief makes the servants quick to fulfill her requests. As if, by moving with alacrity, they will escape the gods’ attentions and demands. When she demands fresh spring water, no one tells her that the trip will take an hour. They simply rush to do it. 

And then it’s Clytemnestra, and Iphigenia, and Britomartis in the corner. But it’s impossible to feel separated. They can all hear the guards circling the tent. When men hold swords, their footsteps sound different.

“There are so any things I planned to tell you, during this time,” Clytemnestra’s lips tremble, but that’s the only part of her that admits to weakness. 

“You still can,” Iphigenia says, keeping her voice soothing. She’s never used this tone with her mother, only with Chrysothemis when she was ill. 

Clytemnestra shakes her head, and a few strands fly from side-to-side. Her hair often escapes its styling, but it is always pushed back into place. Not today. 

“You’re going to a place I have never seen.” Her voice cracks on those last words, like pottery after an earthquake. “I have nothing to give you. And I hate that.” 

That’s the last of their conversation, for quite some time. A full stop, terminating on Clytemnestra’s hate. They sit in silence, and Iphigenia gives thanks that her mother did not demand the full three days for this this wedding ceremony. She is resolute, but she doesn’t think she could bear living with this coiling fear in her stomach. Not for that long. 

The servants return with a tub, and jars covered in beads of condensation. Iphigenia undresses herself as they pour her bath, thinking that a walking corpse has no need for modesty. 

The water is cold, when she slips into it, but she finds that she is fascinated by everything that death will wipe clean. Even the wrinkling of her fingers and toes, even the way her teeth will probably shatter from chattering. Clytemnestra leaves, for a short time. When she opens the flap of the tent, heat-soaked air wafts in, and Iphigenia almost sighs in pleasure. How strange. 

“Britomartis,” she whispers, when the door closes again. “Come here.”

At once, her companion is at her side, kneeling by the tub. “You’re so _brave_ ,” she murmurs. 

“No.” Iphigenia wonders if she sinks down into this water, and never comes up again. If she drowns herself without the proper consecrations, would the goddess still allow these ships to sail? “I’ve just… given up. I’m like a person who gets chased by a bunch of wild dogs. Eventually your legs give way.” 

“You’re much more delightful than Acteaon,” Britomartis almost sounds amused, and Iphigenia nearly loves her for it. This rare gift of mirth on her last day.

“Don’t say that,” Iphigenia admonishes, because she has to. “Don’t make light of Artemis’s vengeance. She might demand one of my sisters, too.”

“What would you do if she did?” 

Iphigenia skims her finger over the surface of water. It feels exceptionally light, when compared to the salt-drenched sea. 

“There’s nothing I could do, so I won’t think about it.” She’s too consumed with thoughts about how she has worked and _worked_ to keep her mother from losing another child, never considering that _she_ was the one Clytemnestra might lose. Not even when she had offered herself to Artemis. She had never expected the goddess to take note of her she realizes now.

“I don’t want to think about anything. I’d rather do something. Please, kiss me.” 

She twists her head around, and Britomartis’s lips are on hers. There’s a steadying hand on Iphigenia’s shoulder. There’s no time for anything else- no time for anything else again- and so Iphigenia bites Britomartis’s lower lip, ever so slightly. The taste of blood is still in her mouth, when Clytemnestra returns. If she thinks anything about the two of them, conspiring together, she says nothing. 

“I won’t cut any of your hair to offer to Artemis,” her mother says, as she steps out of the bath. “Not when she’s getting all of you.” 

_Remember the rest of your children. Don’t tempt fate._ Iphigenia won’t say this, because she knows Clytemnestra thinks of little else. 

Instead, she consents to having her hair combed and combed, until it dries. She is wrapped in a dress and she is covered in an ornate veil. Iphigenia thinks that her lips must be dark and red from kissing. 

_I don’t come to you a complete maid, Artemis. And I won’t apologize for that._

*

Iphigenia wakes to the push-pull crashing of the sea. Before she opens her eyes, she touches her neck. No blood, no wounds, no pain at all. 

She recalls no silvery rivers, no boats filled with the dead (and there must be an increasing number of dead these days.) No dark realms and silent fields full of the departed. Iphigenia can barely recall the ascent to the altar, and yet her recollections strengthen as the memories progress. Because she can remember the red capillaries in her father’s eyes. She remembers his hand shaking as he drew the sword. There was a screaming sound that might have been her mother, but was probably just the gales of wind returning.

Once she summons the courage to look, she doesn’t recognize her surroundings. There are four walls, finely carved from wood. There’s nothing remarkable about her bed; it’s built for comfort, but nothing more ostentatious. It’s the bed for a hunter, who wants nothing more than a place to rest their head after a long day.

And, always, the hum of the sea. She can hear the wind, too.

_I’m not virtuous enough for the Island of the Blessed. So where am I?_

She pinches the soft flesh on the inside of her elbow, and experiences the usual sort of pain. Her fingernails leave crescent marks on her skin. On her shin, there’s a yellowing bruise from when she had knelt in supplication, knelt to beg for a meager life. 

She knows her family would not have rescued her. And, certainly, no one beyond her family would be so moved.

One answer remains and, with sleep clouding Iphigenia’s mind like seaweed, she doesn’t want to approach it. 

She leaves her shelter, and finds a beach. The sand is paler than her toes, and the sky is the color of pearls. 

There is a breeze, of course. Of course. It embraces her, cooling her skin, tossing hair into her eyes. She chooses not to go into the woods that swell up into a mountain. She’s wise enough to know that the forest is not a place for her. If anything momentous is to happen, she wants it to happen under the clear view of the heavens. She circles the beach, and finds it takes her a very short while to traverse the circumference of the island. 

She must wait for the sun to be swallowed into the surface of the sea. When the moon is out, and its rays shatter over the waves, Iphigenia is unsurprised when she hears footsteps. Shock comes in when she turns her head and sees Britomartis. But it’s Britomartis as Pelops must have looked, after he had refashioned by the gods. 

Except, Pelops must have been a dull facsimile compared to this onslaught of immortal, godly beauty. 

So many of Iphigenia’s memories must be vivisected and reconsidered. 

“I am sorry to keep you waiting for so long.” 

Britomartis- Artemis- must feel Iphigenia’s terror the way predators smell fear on the wind. So Iphigenia drops in front of her. She kisses the goddess’s feet, lips firmly shut. She wraps her arms around the legs in front of her. She reaches up for Artemis’s chin. The goddess brings Iphigenia’s fingers to her mouth and kisses them. 

“My Lady,” she says. It’s a soft murmur, the kind of voice female slaves make when her mother takes them under her wings.

“No, no, Iphigenia. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

She is raised to her feet, and then she is kissed. Hard, and absolving. She has nothing to say, so she opens her mouth, and lets Artemis fill her mouth with her tongue.

Then Iphigenia allows herself to be led back to the shack, and her fear gives way like the sand beneath her feet. There are emotions in her gut, but they are formless. Pinning down the wind would be so much simpler. 

She knows she’s going back to bed. That must be her place, now, the same as any princess turned captive. What’s more, she welcomes it. Iphigenia in taking off her clothing, as well as Artemis’s. She puts her hands on those strong, archer’s shoulders, and makes Artemis sit. She makes her lie down. 

For the first time, since becoming lovers with this woman ( _deity_ ) Iphigenia finds herself leaning down into the kiss. There is a strange, stony confidence that comes from knowing an Olympian conspired with the sky and winds to steal you away. 

“You must really want me,” she murmurs.

“And now I have you,” Artemis says. Even as her gives way to Iphigenia, her possessive grip speaks plainly. It’s much clearer than any proclamations or prophecies from the gods.

Iphigenia runs her hands over hip bones that threaten to cut her palms with their sharp angles. She kisses Artemis’s breasts, and though she can knead them with her fingers, nothing about this goddess is pliable. Least of all the sounds she makes, satisfied, triumphant, and needy all at once. Iphigenia is sinking into a hazy frenzy, but she knows this isn’t a dream just like she knew this island wasn’t the realm of Hades. She knows because everything about Artemis tastes much too dynamic, like the very pinnacle of life. Artemis yields and yields, like this is the one space in which she may allow herself to be anything less than strong. She seems to revel in it with greedy abandon, like she is delighted to be undone by the hands of a mortal girl. 

“I have you,” Artemis repeats, when she must be close to the edge. But there’s a question hidden in there. Prodding her to answer. 

This makes Iphigenia pause, regroup, pull her hands away. It’s like cold water poured over her, tempering the effects of inebriation. Until now, she has imagined her thoughts and desires flowing into Artemis, like rivers joining to the sea. But the gods are not omniscient. Her own family’s curse speaks to the gods’ inability to predict all the bright and cruel vagaries of a mortal’s heart. This is why they only seem to act when hearing spoken oaths and promises. It seems to be the one constant of the universe; a person’s soul is isolated, sacrosanct, and no keys can allow you access to it.

Artemis won’t beg, Iphigenia knows this already, her body (warm and open and wanting) pleads for her. Something within Artemis wants Iphigenia’s hands and mouth and the devotion of her spirit. Not just as a supplicant, but also as a lover. 

But Iphigenia’s spirit is no longer hers to give, any more than her father could give away depleted stores of grain. She thinks something vital within her must have been pulverized in Aulis. 

“Please hold me,” she whispers, noting her own primal hunger (divorced entirely from matters of the soul), and noting that’s she barely allowed herself to be touched at all. Artemis smiles and it’s wonderful and terrible, and then they she is pulled into strong arms. They are pressed together, in a tangle of smooth skin and searching hands.

Artemis praises her, and the words and the embrace wraps around Iphigenia. They pull her down, cocooning her, and she moves and moves until waves of pressure crest within her body, and crush whatever of her remains.

*

The days pile up and she counts them until their number is so large that she decides to forget all the numbers that come after.

Later, she won’t be able to remember details from the first few weeks on the nameless island. Wisps here, scraps there. She spends most days abed, alone, only rising when the late afternoon paints everything in gold dust. There are stores of food for her, but she rarely touches them. Instead, she will rise, go outside, and take off on a sprint that slows into a steady run. She circles the entire island, and her lungs always burn by the time she returns to the start. Her legs strengthen, and her skin becomes tan, drawing out a plethora of gilded undertones. Every day, her hair seems to hang heavier from her scalp. She is still growing, still changing, even if she is dead to the world. 

She never goes into the forest, the tangled heart of this island. Sometimes bats come out, sometimes owls stare down at her from tree branches. That is enough for her.

Every night, Artemis comes to Iphigenia, often hauling a fresh kill from some hunt. She cleans and cooks it, and every time Iphigenia remembers that the official reason for being here is her father killing the wrong deer. But then Artemis brings her dinner, and, always ravenous, Iphigenia tears into the meat. Her attempts at propriety seem to have washed away, like waves smoothing broken mosaic tiles. 

Artemis always watches Iphigenia devour her meal, staring at her with ravenous eyes. Iphigenia sometimes remembers that the gods often feed on the scents of sacrifice, and she wonders if they can ever be satisfied that way. Smoke seems like it would coat the throat and stomach, but tease you rather than favor you with long-lasting fulfillment. Maybe, in exchange for immortality, a god’s joys and ecstasies are muted. Maybe that’s why Artemis seems so enamored with Iphigenia, a mortal. Maybe she wants to feel the shadow of death chasing her.

They always fuck right after dinner, sometimes in bed, sometimes on the floor. They no longer bother to hide their cries of pleasure. There are no slaves to overhear and gossip, no relatives to interfere. No one at all. Even Poseidon, their only possible neighbor, probably hears them at a distance. 

And most nights, Artemis yields for Iphigenia. And every night, Iphigenia reminds herself that, if Artemis wanted to choke the life out of her and throw her shade to tartarus, no one would rush to her aid. 

One day, at noon, Iphigenia wakes to a pattering sound she can’t quite place. It’s dark, even though her body tells her she’s slept to her usual time. Slowly, she picks out individual noises within the racket. Drip, drip, drip. Liquid falls onto her forehead, and slides down her temple.

It’s rain. 

She throws open the door, and realizes she has forgotten what a good and proper storm sounds like. She has forgotten what it’s like to have rain stream over her skin. Iphigenia begins her usual run, but the water soaking her clothes lends this a startling new context. The trees bend with the wind, and there are no sounds of birds at all. It doesn’t matter. They will return, and this rain will make things grow again. 

Iphigenia stays outside for hours upon hours, even when thunder rolls in. She wants to wave to Zeus. She wants to tell him that her mother and siblings need this so much more than her (Orestes especially, that poor child who was born into a world without rain. He must be walking by now). Lightning streaks down from the sky, singeing some sand just a stone’s throw from Iphigenia. She feeds on that burning smell, and a giddy sort of bravado propels her into Artemis’s arms as soon as she arrives. 

“Doesn’t standing around in the cold make your kind sick?” There is blood on Artemis’s hands, and it leaves red streaks on Iphigenia’s skin. The stain is gone within moments.

“I don’t think anything will happen to me,” Iphigenia says, and realizes it’s the first time in weeks that she’s strung together so many words. “I am blessed.”

But Artemis just shakes her head. Once they are inside, she pulls Iphigenia’s clothes off of her, and it’s the first time in a long while that there has not been a hint of lasciviousness in her touch. 

“Look at how much you’re shivering,” she whispers. “I think you must be a little crazy.” 

There’s a retort Iphigenia wants to make, but she might have used up her store of words for the moment. Instead, she allows herself to be carried to bed, and bundled into the blankets. Even though the rain renewed her flesh and spirit, being warmed, like this, fortifies her restoration.

She will need all of her strength. This is why Iphigenia lets Artemis bring tonight’s dinner to her, on a platter heaped high. They eat together, casual and almost happy 

“Where are we?” She asks. “What island is this? Does it have a name?”

Artemis has been stroking Iphigenia’s hair, even thougn it has long since dried. 

“I was born here, along with my brother. I was born first.” That last declaration actually makes Iphigenia giggle. Artemis sounds so pleased with something she could not have controlled. It reminds her, a little, of the way Electra is proud of being older than Orestes. 

The revelation also dredges up some memories, like stones plucked from a lake bed. Leto the mother of Artemis and Apollo, forbidden from giving birth on land, chased forever by Python. The clever work around, where she bore the twins on an island that moved. As a child, Iphigenia had thrilled at the cleverness of that solution, but tonight she wonders about Leto’s feelings. As a goddess, she could have dwelt forever in labor without at last departing to the respite of Hades. There must have been a time she lived in fear that this was to be her perpetual agony. 

She also remembers that Apollo and Artemis had killed Python. They did not forget things. The tales were quite clear on this matter.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asks, knowing that the world must contain a thousand such spits of land. 

“Because I know this place well.”

“Do you think of it as home?” Iphigenia turns in Artemis’s embrace, and refuses to look away. 

“I think of it as a place where I was content.”

Iphigenia can see it in her mind’s eye; Artemis and Apollo exploring these beaches together. The two of them running around in the mountains. Laughing and gossiping. Learning that they liked to hunt, pursue, and kill, well before they learned the ecstasy of vengeance. 

Iphigenia closes her eyes, and buries her face in Artemis’s breast. 

“Are _you_ happy here?”

It’s the first time that Artemis has asked after Iphigenia’s well-being, and she has no idea how to answer. She feigns sleep, and knows Artemis isn’t fooled.

*

The muses will never sing of Iphigenia’s rage, the morning, week, and month after, but it is something that existed. Once kindled, this kind of thing never really goes out. 

Suddenly, she notices that she has no source of work or entertainment. There are no tasks to fill her days. No sisters to make her laugh or for her to scold. No music, no poetry, no bawdy plays. If she wants to eat anything other than meat- if she wants anything other than the food Artemis provides for her- she must forage for it.

Even if she manages to escape, she knows that there will be no such thing as homecoming. Something in her parents’ marriage died in Aulis. 

There are many days she doesn’t leave bed at all. She cries, and wishes she could ask her mother how she survived that first awful year in Argos. 

Mostly. Though, Iphigenia goes for walks instead of runs. She recites every tale of the gods. Everything she has ever heard. Her mind wanders to Persephone, first, but then she discards her. Hades’s queen is a goddess in her own right, and Demeter can blight the earth for her daughter. Iphigenia thinks that Clytemnestra might do even worse, given the opportunity and power, but those are words she will never speak aloud. 

There was Psyche, led to the slaughter, then carted away to Eros’s palace. Iphigenia had once been infuriated by Psyche’s sisters tricking her into breaking her promise to her husband. But, perhaps, they had just been trying to save her. Maybe they had just missed her. 

Ariadne, also comes to mind. The princess abandoned on the beach, and then wed to Dionysus. Some of the Minoan slaves like to sigh over that one, and the romance of it had appealed to Iphigenia at the time. But now she wonders if Ariadne was allowed to decide. What if, after a lifetime of being beholden to her father, then abandoned by her lover, she would have preferred to run wild, attached to no one at all? Would Dionysus have cared if she expressed this wish? 

Semele burning up in Zeus’s radiance. All the tales of men screaming in horror after discovering they’d slept with Aphrodite. These are the tales she turns to next. 

The worst and last tales concern Artemis. The children killed because of their parents’ crimes. The followers she has killed for being raped by Zeus. Some of those unfortunates were placed in the night sky, but that no longer seems like a satisfactory ending to Iphigenia. 

Many nights, she looks up at the stars, and wishes she could speak to them. 

*

Artemis returns to her, as she always does most evenings, and is clearly surprised to finds Iphigenia somber, and almost radiating with vigor.

“I want to go up into the woods,” she says, noticing two emotions flit across Artemis’s face. Anger at being ordered. Fascination at being ordered. 

“Have you ever gone there?” 

“I have rarely been in a forest,” she says, “not even the ones near my home. And I’m scared of the wild beasts in there.” 

“Oh, that’s interesting.” Artemis’s laughter is a terrible thing. It makes Iphigenia want to kiss her deeply, or shove her. “It’s been so long that I’ve been scared of the woods that I’ve forgotten than is a common thing for your kind.”

They actually hold hands for a while, even as the land starts to ascend and Iphigenia grows short of breath. There are boulders to traverse, and branches to duck under. All around them, the forest thrashes with life. In the encroaching dusk, gold and gray eyes sometimes peek out at them before scurrying away. 

“See?” Artemis says, at one point, “you frighten them more than they frighten you.” 

At last, they reach a peek where the land goes no further. Only the trees reach higher, scraping at Zeus’s realm. They seem solid and strong, but he could destroy them all with a stroke of lightning.

“Come this way,” Artemis says. “It’s a bit dark, but you can see.”

And Iphigenia _can_ see. The beach below is a miniscule ring of gold and white, wreathing all the land between. She has been thinking of the woods as a solid thing, but they peak and fall. Rivers snake through a panoply of trees that seem more numerous than the stars. 

It’s enough to make a mortal soul feel infinite. 

“Why am I here?” 

She doesn’t realize Artemis has had her arm flung around Iphigenia’s back, until that grip constricts her.

“What?” Artemis’s voice is a bit too tranquil. “You’re here because you walked up here.”

“Not that. Why did you take me, Lady?” It’s the first time she has ever raised her voice since knowing she was in Artemis’s presence. And so she knows she has sealed whatever happens here with her blood. 

“’Take you?’” Later, upon reflect, the shock in Artemis’s voice will break Iphigenia’s heart. “I saved you.”

“You saved me? How?”

Artemis turns Iphigenia so that they are face-to-face. She holds onto Iphigenia’s shoulders. 

“Your father is a sacrilegious coward. He is a warmonger. He would have married you off to someone unworthy of you.”

Iphigenia wipes from sweat from her temples. “But I always knew that would be my fate. My mother would have made sure he married me off to someone….” What counted as ‘worthy’ in Artemis’s eyes. Kind? Intelligent? Peaceful? “To someone that I could rely on.” 

“Your mother couldn’t stop Agamemnon from killing you.” 

Artemis’s arrows remain in their quiver, but she might as well have notched one right into Iphigenia’s stomach. She winces around the pain of it. 

“But that’s what I mean. She couldn’t save me because of how you manipulated us all, Lady. Now I have to live knowing what my father is capable of doing. I didn’t have to know but now I always will.” It’s knowledge that has destroyed her perceptions of her childhood. It destroys her hope for her mother, her sisters, and her brother who might enact similar things when he grows to adulthood. 

She has been staring at her feet, and how the grind into the earth. But when she looks up and meets Artemis’s stare, she is unprepared for the confusion she finds there. 

“Iphigenia.” Now, Artemis cups the sides of her face, like she’s holding something made of glass. Something holy and precious. “All of us live with the knowledge that our parents are capable of cruelty.”

It’s like prodding a campfire, and setting sparks hissing into the night. Everything in Iphigenia lights up at once. 

Until this moment, she has believed Artemis is entirely divorced from mortal terror, mortal grief. Now she remembers other stories of the Olympians. Deeper tales, darker tales. Cronus swallowing his children, growing drunk on his own power and ambition. Zeus doing the same to Athene’s mother. 

There are many versions of Leto’s tale, but none of them involve Zeus interceding to help her. To help their children. 

Agmamnon’s actions must pale in comparison to that. 

Those hands are still holding Iphigenia’s face. Instead of shoving them away, she slams her face into Artemis’s. The kiss is hard and tense and there’s no comfort in Artemis’s body. They cling to each other, until Iphigenia’s thinks her bones might break. 

Then they pull back, and, despite everything, Artemis looks strangely content. Iphigenia can’t stand it. She raises her hand, intending to slap Artemis, knowing full well it will be intercepted. She knows that this obliterates all her previously minor infractions. This might earn her an eternity of torture.

Artemis grabs onto Iphigenia’s wrist, and shoves her down onto the ground. When she lands on top of Iphigenia, though, she’s clearly taken on a human guise. Otherwise, she could pin Iphigenia, easily. She could probably flatten her completely. Instead, they wrangle; they pull hair, leave scratch marks on arms, and bite at each other’s necks. They roll this way and that, and Iphigenia mutters her grievances in a steady downpour. 

She’s on top of Artemis, their legs entangled, rocking her pelvis in a motion that makes Artemis’s eyes roll back, and dig her nails into the ground. There’s no love in their motions, only a kind of brutal respect.

_She let you win,_ Iphigenia reminds herself. This is a trick too. 

She gets her hands between Artemis’s legs and, as always, is struck by the heat and the slick, wet skin. The goddess’s whole body goes rigid, and Iphigenia watches as Artemis’s world seems to recede to this one single action. 

In the past, she has discovered she can bring Artemis up to the edge of ecstasy before retreating. Leaving her partner’s ichor-filled blood boiling with need.

“What do you _want_ , Iphigenia.” Artemis’s voice is ragged with near-moans. 

“I want to be around people again. Will you let me have that again?”

Iphigenia’s fingers circle and circle, dart close and away. She knows Artemis could kill her in an instant, or torment her for hours, years, centuries. Artemis could shove her down and take her satisfaction, again and again, regardless of Iphigenia’s desires. But Artemis wants something from Iphigenia that can never be compelled or stolen, and it’s the only remaining weapon in her arsenal.

So she watches, impassive, as Artemis writhes on the ground. None of the dirt sticks to her skin, and she doesn’t sweat. But when she screws up her face, it’s nearly human. The desperation in her voice is definitely human. 

“Yes, Iphigenia, I will return you to human kind. Now… please… You know what to do” 

She has never known Artemis to break vows. So Iphigenia finally touches Artemis where she needs it, and she does it with deadly aim. She watches the goddess fall apart. 

As Artemis’s breathing evens out, Iphigenia watches as she grapples with the dawning realization. It feels a bit like victory, but Iphigenia also realizes she has pulled a god-like trick. 

*

When Iphigenia departs from that unnamed island, it’s like the day of her sacrifice flowing backwards. A stream reversing its course. She leaves by night, instead of day. She is leaving Artemis, instead of being offered up to her. 

Some things do remain the same, however. Iphigenia is heading into the unknown, once again. And, as she walks to the silvery chariot, she does not look back.

Artemis takes Iphigenia’s hand, and her fingers feel like killing frost. It’s strange to think how many times she’s laid with this goddess, when Iphigenia’s very flesh seems to repel the cold frosty of immortality. 

Then the chariot _flies_ and for the first time in her life, Iphigenia feels her own youth. It pours out of her in great shrieking laughs. The whole thing is undignified, and Artemis’s finely carved expression doesn’t change. 

They never speak. Not even once, during the entire journey. 

When Artemis descends to another island, panic bubbles up in Iphigenia’s veins, and she nearly screams. But then there’s a hand at the nape of her neck.

“Relax.” Fingers brush up and down in a soothing rhythm. “Your kind lives here.” It might be an insult, and it might be an assurance. With Artemis it might be both. It might be neither.

Iphigenia has nothing to say to that, so she keeps her peace, long after they’ve landed. When they make their way into a settlement, the stink and sound of human life takes root beneath her skin. She smells food cooking, feels shoulders jostling against her own, hears people screaming in frustration or laughing without pleasure. Her eyes burn, and she can’t tell if it’s from sorrow, joy, or from meaningless bewilderment. 

“Where are we?” she asks, noticing that they are two kinds of people in this city. There are those who seem in a rush to accomplish something. Who seem to think that if they slow down they will wither and die. 

“We’re in the kingdom of Tauris,” Artemis says. The men stare at them in blatant hunger, and do not seem afraid of doing so. When Iphigenia looks at her companion it’s easy to discern why. The Britomartis disguise has made a reappearance, though her clothes match the mores of this place rather than Argos. “Tauris is sacred to me.”

She looks all around her, tries to see hints of Artemis in this city, and is defeated. Even in the most prosperous of times, this settlement clearly has less wealth than Argos. It has clearly been struck by an earthquake, lately. So many buildings have cracks running through them, and she stares like she might see blood pouring forth from those fissures. 

As they enter the palace, Iphigenia realizes she has seen very few women.

There is a king, and he is having a dinner in celebration of some holiday, though the portions are meager. Iphigenia watches as Britomartis strides forth and becomes Artemis. Later, she will be unable to say what comprises the change from mortal to immortal. It’s like staring at the moon or the sun and expecting to see them move. If you stare long enough you might manage it, but not before burning your eyes. 

All the men in the room go still, and Iphigenia understands this. When seeing a god, it’s tempting to freeze up, hoping that they are a nightmare that might fade. 

“My Lady,” the king says, dropping to his knees before Artemis. “We do not deserve the honor. May we offer you anything?” The man is quite young- just a few years older than Iphigenia, probably and his offering of praise and hospitality sounds more like pleading. 

“No, Thoas,” Artemis says, and when she helps the man to his feet she is surprisingly gentle. “You have always been diligent in your offerings to me. Today I feel like offering you something in return.” 

Artemis beckons Iphigenia closer, and, once again, she remembers the white deer. There is no rope around her neck, but she moves forward until she is just two paces behind Artemis. All eyes are on her. They consume her. 

“Is she meant to be my…?” Thoas’s words cut off. He must realize he cannot say ‘queen,’ ‘lover,’ or ‘slave.’ If he is wrong, the gaffe may prove to be disastrous. 

“I know your last head priestess was taken by the Achaeans. I have brought you a replacement.” 

“Yes, it is been a year, now, since we’ve had someone appropriate to take on the task. I am sorry that our devotions have been so haphazard.” To Iphigenia’s surprise, Thoas’s eyes shine. He blinks rapidly, and then it’s gone. 

“She was your sister, wasn’t she?” Artemis asks, even though she must know. 

“Yes, Lady.” Thoas sucks in a harsh breath, then stands up straighter. Tries to seem kingly. “May I address our new head priestess?” 

Artemis nods. 

The king looks at her, clearly regarding her for the first time. Iphigenia is not offended. Artemis, being who she is, commands attention, devotion. She owns every pulse of her own heart. She can’t fault Thoas in any way.

“What are you called?” he asks. _What are you?_ suffuses every symbol.

In a previous life, Iphigenia would have answered readily. Now, though, she discovers she is at a crossroads. Her true name will unlock certain does, while slamming others shut. But, ultimately, she knows she does not want to bear an Achaean name in this place. Not when her father’s men have ransacked this kingdom. Not when they seem to have carried away most of the women that lived here. 

When she thinks about relinquishing her name, she is surprised when her memories do not return to the mother who named and loved her despite having lost her first child to murder. Instead, she remembers talking with Chrysothemis about an Egyptian goddess of childbirth. But she can only retrieve a few shards of that deity’s name. 

“I am called Hecate,” she says, and is gratified by Artemis’s surprise.

“Yes,” Artemis’s response come slowly. “This is Hecate. My most devoted follower.”

“Be welcome.” Thoas says.

“Her body is sacred,” Artemis adds. “No man is permitted to touch her without my consent.” 

Iphigenia reels from this, so much so that she barely feels it when Artemis twists her around. She does feel the kiss on her forehead, however. 

And then Artemis is gone. Her Lady’s absence, seems similar to the way that some who lose their hands claim to still feel their missing fingers or toes

But that is foolishness. 

_I am Hecate. Hecate, Hecate, Hecate. She was never Clytemnestra’s daughter. Agamemnon never killed a person named Hecate. I can remake myself beyond them, beyond Artemis._

*

Thus, Hecate must acclimate to a new island. 

Her new schedule is wholly different, and she is grateful to work, again. She raises before dawn to begin her training in devotions. The epicenter of this island’s trauma finds its expression in this temple. It has been robbed of so many of its women, as though her father wishes to make war on Artemis. 

For a while, she lives as an acolyte and undergoes training. An old priest instructs her grudgingly at first, then with a grim sort of acceptance. Life must go on, after all.

She no longer feasts on meat every day and, instead, counts herself lucky if she gets oat cakes with her usual meal of lentils. During the night, her bed is empty. Cold leaks in through the thin blanket, and it feels like Artemis’s embrace. She tries to understand how several years seemed to have passed while her primary job was to be Artemis’s lover.

What’s clear is the devastation dealt to this land. Her father and his men had landed on this island, they had put men to the sword, and carried away women and children as slaves. They had ransacked much of the storage of food. And then they had left. The whole thing must have been as sudden and devastation as the earthquake that came months later. 

Hecate had heard of the Achaean’s aggression, before, but her father’s sacrifice of her was the only time she’d been asked to answer for it. Now it cloaks her, like the sad refrain in a song. Her own sorrow and betrayal weaves into the lives of Tauris. No one here has been untouched by tragedy. 

Although she is her priestess, she never speaks to Artemis about personal matters. 

She thinks she could live the rest of her days, this way. Stone-cold obeisance, and the endless cycle of work and sleep. It suits her, like cloudy nights now suit her. 

But then a small ship of Achaeans is stranded on the shore during the kind of downpour that chokes the soil without giving anything back. It’s a fishing vessel, populated by what appears to be an old man and his young grandsons. 

Thoas, who is usually temperate and jocular with Hecate, marches them to the temple. His men shove them towards the old priest, the man who handles all the sacrifices. 

“You will kill them at dawn, tomorrow. Any Achaean that comes to Tauris will die at Artemis’s altar”

*

On Artemis’s island of birth, time passed by with all the ephemeral speed of bird’s flapping wings. Among the Taurians, though, every month feels as long as a year. Every year feels like twelve. She takes parts in rituals, speaks prayers for others, and hopes that no Achaeans end up on their shores. When the oldest priest dies, Hecate is handed the knife, and told she is to perform all sacrifices now, whether she is sacrificing man or beast. She closes her hands around the handle and thinks about Pandora. Pandora with her box containing all the world’s ills. It implied that hope was something that took physical form. Was it something she could cut out of herself, the way doctors pare away diseased flesh?

During Hecate’s first sacrifice she offers kind words and a coin for the afterlife. She cries until her blade slit the man’s throat, and he becomes something much less than human. She stares at the body at her feet, on the altar, and realized she had transformed a person into a shade. Killing is so easy, yet so final. She wonders if this feelings was what drove her father on and on and on, to battle and to war. Was this why he deemed her death a worthy action?

After this horrendous rush of power, she orders herself to not feel anything at all when she kills. Neither ecstasy nor despair. Nothing that might lead to intoxication or addiction. 

During these long, fallow years, the Taurians engage in skirmishes and battles with the people of neighboring islands. Before such excursions, Thoas often visits her in her temple, face lowered, oddly contrite. Hecate offers him no absolution. After all, he is behaving by the scriptures of his world. When he leaves, she often thinks of trails across earth. Trails worn down by human feet, caravans, and chariots. She thinks about paths across the sea. The forest was an unrestrained, uncertain place, but the realms of humans strike her as the greater threat, now.

And so the streets of Tauris begin to fill with women. Women with their hands and wrists tied. Wide-eyed women who are now the property of men who stole them from their home, killed their husbands in their marital beds. When she sees them, tries not to see them. It’s how she looks at sacrifices

One night, though, she is called to attend to the death throes of one such woman. An earthquake had splintered the ceiling of her home, and pieces of it had shattered her skull. Hecate goes to pray over the woman during her travails, and the man holding her hand is so solicitous that Hecate thinks he is her husband. She persists in thinking that until he calls the dying woman his slave, in tones so tender it makes Hecate want to walk away. 

Instead, she kneels by the woman, ignoring the stench of encroaching death. She whispers encouraging words, until the woman’s eyes close. She sings the kind of songs that once soothed Chrysothemis. When the woman passes, Hecate hopes she felt a fraction of comfort. 

The man begins to wail, and, for the first time in nearly a decade, Hecate addresses Artemis. 

“Lady,” she says, her voice a thread thin enough for the Fates to cut. “Please watch over the women of this island. They need you.” She takes a deep breath. “I have offered myself before, I will do it again.” 

Hecate expects nothing. The goddess’s face must be turned from her now, and part of Hecate will always want that to be the case. 

And yet, when she returns to her room, she nearly cries with relief at not being alone. 

“Lady.” She lies prostrate on the ground, but not before catching a full glimpse of the face Artemis has chosen to wear. It is the oldest she has chosen to look; there are hints of wrinkles around her eyes, although her mouth is still smooth and expressive. She is covered in grime from the battlefield, and the lack of bruising is incongruous. 

“Hecate,” Artemis says at once, despite only having heard that name once. “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long.”

As Hecate pulls herself back to a kneeling position, she gives the question serious thought. She thinks about the men returning from hunts. Not from the one that procured the white deer. The many hunts before that; where the men returned weary, with nothing to show. 

“You’ve been in Troy.”

“Yes.”

Hecate has so many questions, but she can only stare. Artemis sounds so strange that it’s tempting to think this is some trickster god assuming her form. She breathes in and, through the scent of dust and blood, she smells Artemis; the forest, the earth, stones beneath a moon-drenched sky.

“How have you been?” 

Again, the uncharacteristic hesitation. “May I… show you?” 

“Yes.”

Hecate’s head ends up resting on Artemis’s breast, where her heart should be. And she hears it; the roar of battle. She hears Artemis’s false human voice. Once again, she has disguised herself as a human. Sometimes as a serving woman, sometimes as a camp followers, sometimes as the lowliest of soldiers. She hears Artemis suffer and experience mortal wounds over and over again. She hears her crying on Zeus’s shoulder, the way a girl named Iphigenia had cried in Agamemnon’s arms. 

Artemis doesn’t her go, and Hecate finds she doesn’t want her too. 

“This is why I am so surprised by what has become of Tauris. Troy is dying and its death throes are so loud. It’s all I can hear.” 

That’s when Hecate finds reaching up, and brushing away Artemis’s tears. 

“I didn’t know you loved Troy so much,” Hecate says. And then she remembers Artemis’s loves have always surprised her. 

“It is. That’s why I came to Agamemnon’s household. I came as soon as Helen and Paris ran away. Troy has been weakened over the years by earthquakes. Your father is too relentless. If he waged a war against Troy, he would win eventually. I wanted to learn his every weakness. When you nearly convinced him to not kill the deer, I thought that weakness was you. If he nearly failed at killing my deer, how could he kill you?”

“So you decided to barter with my life.” 

“I didn’t think he would kill you. But once the wager was made…” 

“You gods are so beholden to humans, in some ways.” 

“Yes. We are.” 

Hecate stands up, and kisses Artemis then. Kisses with all the rage she has stored in her heart. They fall into bed, a tangle of limbs, a tangle of grievances, and regret, and sorrows. The kiss transforms into something deeper, something almost loving. Hecate sighs at how good it feels to have someone touching her, unlocking all the pleasure hidden deep in her body after years of being ascetic. 

She should be angry. She _is_ angry. Artemis will never apologize, and Hecate will never forgive her. 

But Hecate has tried to be strong for so long. Artemis has been set in her ways for an eternity. During the space of this night, setting these things to the side is the one thing they can afford. 

*

 

Hecate used to think the conclusion of the war with Troy would bring some kind of personal revelation. In the end, t’s one destruction out of many. Over the years, so many great and powerful cities disappear, like fireflies dying out after the last gasp of summer. The Hittite empire implodes, and Hattusa and Ugarit stop sending messengers. Trade routes bleed out, and Hecate forgets the look of cloth from Indus, the taste of spices from further afield than that. Egypt clings to life but even they grow as quiescent as a tumor-ridden man. 

Survivors from these upheavals attack the island in waves, the way earthquakes have aftershocks. The way volcanic ash can rain down from the sky, and fill one’s lungs. Tales come to the end, detailing the many ways the Achaeans meet destruction on the way home

Women continue to be brought to the island, and some die, but most live. Now, Hecate seeks them out. She learns their names, their stories, and she teaches them how to identify and use medicinal plants. She blesses all their children (living and dead) in the name of Artemis.

After her era of silence, Hecate address Artemis most days. When her duties are complete, when she can’t physically attend to any more supplicants she wraps herself in her tattered blanket, and makes a libation of her soul. She speaks frankly, counting her joys (and sometimes there is joy. Sometimes there is companionship, and small victories.) She pours out her fears, and her wrath. 

And sometimes Artemis visits her. Sometimes she confesses things in return.

“Agamemnon spoke of you very little,” she says one night, and Hecate has to close her eyes. 

“But he didn’t refrain completely, right?” Somehow, it seems important, even though that happened to a very different girl. She wants to know if Agamemnon wept, and felt something akin to regret. 

“No,” Artemis says. Her fingers slide up and down Hecate’s spine, caressing it. “After Achilles died, Agamemnon took to saying he had been told you were on the Island of the Blessed, as Achilles’s wife.” 

“So he lied.” She wonders at this, shocked her father would continue to gainsay the gods. 

“No, I think he genuinely dreamed it. I think he wants it to be the case.” 

Long after Artemis has left, Hecate will wonder she will do if the sea coughs up her father. What will she do if she is expected to kill him on their altar? 

Instead, Poseidon sends them wave after wave of lowly Achaean soldiers. This is the pattern, immutable and almost dull. Until the day he returns her brother to her.

After Hecate and Orestes recognize each other, he is family, he has her blood, and he is a stranger. But she sees bits of her family, written into his flesh and bone. He has Clytemnestra’s arched eyebrows. His hands are rough, like Agamemnon’s. He laughs at unhappy things, just like Electra. And, like Chyrosthemis, he is unwell. It’s a different disease than hers, but she knows he has fits and seizures. 

When he speaks about the past, the words die in his throat. That makes him sound like Iphigenia. 

During their reunion, their cousin Pylades keeps a respectful distance. He must hear them, though, just as Hecate’s serving women can hear them from the corners of the room. 

Mostly, though, she stares at Orestes. He looks young, but he wears his suffering like a corpse wears a golden death mask. 

“Sometimes, I think you must have just stepped out of Hades unobserved,” he says, a new thought interjected into the middle of their long conversation. 

They both laugh, because they both have cause to know you can’t leave a god. Not when they have taken notice of you, and charted a course for your life. 

“You don’t believe me?” she says, joking, somehow, even though proving her identity had been a fraught affair at first. 

“I believe you. I just don’t believe in miracles. Prophecy, yes. Miracles, no.” 

There’s a long pause, and she takes his hands during it. She remembers the last time she’d held them. All of his fingers had been small enough to curl around her thumb. Now his palms are much bigger than hers. 

“I do.” Hecate says. “I obtained a miracle from Artemis.”

“Your survival,” Orestes says. 

“No. Chrysothemis’s.” 

Orestes squints, and Hecate has to remind herself that he was born into a world in which Chrysothemis was healthy. “You don’t remember this, of course, but just before you were born she had some sort of wasting sickness. I offered myself to Artemis, and she healed our sister.” 

His fingers clamp down on hers. He isn’t angry, but she watches as the perceptions of the past shift in his eyes like the wind tossed seas. 

“You offered yourself to Artemis and then…” 

“Exactly,” she whispers, even though it’s not quite the truth. Let him think better on the father-stranger he had to avenge. Let him think the death of his beloved mother worth it, as long as it lets him grow out of his shame. “Artemis was calling me to answer my debts. It’s not his fault.” 

Orestes wrests away from her. For a long time he stands side-by-side with Pylades, their shoulders touching. This time, they are the ones to hold hands. 

Then her walks over to Hecate in long, loping bounds. He bows before her, and she places her fingers on his head. She whispers some blessings over him.

“Then you should probably know that Chrysothemis lives well. She was married soon after the death of our father, and she seems happy whenever I see her.”

“Does she have children?”

“Yes. Two sons and a daughter. She’s married to a king and she rules well. Mother-” Orestes swallows. 

“Clytemnestra made sure she married well,” Pylades says, catching Orestes’s sentence when it falters and falls. 

There’s a strange kind of joy in Hecate’s chest that is as tangible as a stab wound. _Artemis fulfilled my prayer after all_. She tries to imagine Chyrosthemis’s children- tries to imagine her palace and kingdom- but she can only picture Electra as she looked as a small child. How she had clung to Iphigenia’s skirts as she left to wed Achilles, and how Iphigenia didn’t know she cared so much for her.

Above all, she knows she must return Orestes to Electra. 

“But what will you do?” He asks, as they design an escape plan. “Aren’t you someone they will come looking for pretty quickly?”

“Yes,” she says, “I’ve gained some repute on this island. I will distract Thoas while you escape.”

“How will you get to the ship in time?” Orestes fakes a laugh, but she can see the fear rising up in him. “Are you such a good swimmer?”

“I’m going to be distracting the king as long as possible. And I’m not leaving with you, Orestes.” 

There’s a silence as drawn out as a pained moan. 

“Then why?” Orestes’s shoulders sink. He is not a man who will fight fate, and Hecate suspects she reeks of fate. 

Iphigenia’s longing for Argos is as acute as Tantalus’s hunger and thirst. He is their ancestor, after all, and sometimes she can feel his crimes crowding her bloodstream. But she knows that her return will lead to disaster. Electra will see that the cause of Agamemnon’s death was a lie (or, at least, not the entire truth.) Orestes will realize he killed his mother before she could be reunited with Iphigenia. Chrysothemis might be compelled to visit Argos, just to see her long-dead sister, and the curse might remember her existence. 

“I wasn’t able to protect Electra or you while I lived with you,” she says. “I know life has been exceptionally cruel to you in recent years, but you’re still alive. Both of you are the ones who will carry our house into future. Maybe you’ll make it better. You don’t need me.”

Orestes shakes his head at that. “You’re still alive, too, Iphigenia.”

Hearing _that_ name nearly makes her double over. Instead, she reaches over and kisses Orestes on the forehead. She senses the dread that has taken root in his bones. She also senses hints of hope, of possibility. 

“If you want to do honor to me you will take my serving women with you. And you will make sure they are free in Argos.” 

This inspires a chorus of gasps. 

In a blink, Orestes becomes serious, somber, kingly. “Of course, Iphigenia.” 

Orestes doesn’t ask if she will survive, because he must know the answer, and he won’t shame either of them with begging. She tells him how to escape and then, with one last embrace he is gone. Her serving women are gone, and she hopes they find more happiness in their second foreign home.

Hecate makes one last trek to the palace, knowing she will never walk this path again. She laughs with the king, and she regales him with the histories of the Achaean captives. How they have become unclean by killing their kin. 

When she hears the sound of running- hears how it draws closer and closer to this room- her eyes fall shut. It’s the sound of her death, coming to collect her after being denied in Aulis.

“The Achaeans have escaped. They’ve taken a lot of the temple’s slave women, too.” She doesn’t turn around to face the messenger, but she hears the youth in his voice. The fear of being held liable.

“That is my doing,” she says, so that Thoas’s attention turns to her. His will be one of the last living faces she sees, she realizes. “I distracted you so that they may escape.” 

“Hecate…” To her surprise, the pain in his voice hurts a little. “Why?” 

“Because,” she says, “I am also Achaean.” 

That’s all she says. All she will allow. Already she is withdrawing from this world. 

“That’s all you have to say? You have killed all the other Achaeans.” 

“Yes, I did. But now I refuse.” she says, knowing her lack of an explanation will haunt him until the end. _Oh, Thoas, so much happens that is beyond our control. You need to understand this._ “You may sacrifice me to Artemis instead. I am not a kin killer, she will like me better.”

Hecate and Thoas stare at each other, as still as statues. His mouth works, and he can’t seem to find words for her. Instead, he calls for the executioner.

When the sword is laid to her neck, she feels her blood slinking down her chin and collarbones. Her body still wants to live, and her hands work to hold the wound closed, but her mind is bursting free. Like radiance fleeing from a candle. There’s a touch on her arm that she recognizes as immortal, but it’s not Hermes here to usher her to the underworld. She looks back, and the goddess’s eyes are gray, yes. Gray like the spots that swim in her eyes when she stares at the sun for too long. 

“This is the last Achaean you will kill, Thoas.” Hecate is entangled in Athene’s arms, and she watches as her body leaves bloody marks on the on the ground. There’s no red carpet for her, but she is dying like Agamemnon. “You will not order your men to chase the escapees, or you will face my wrath.” 

They travel further and further, until Thoas is the size of an ant. Until Tauris is the size of an ant. 

“Where are we going,” she whispers, “Hades is not in the sky. Unless the tales are wrong?”

“My sister and I never agreed on the matter of the Trojan war,” Athene says, “but when I learned she wanted to retrieve you, I told her I would do it. You saved Achaeans, after all.”

They fly so high that Hecate expects to feel the cold and the wind. They pass through clouds and she realizes they are made of something like frost. They pass through one, and an uneathly city rises before her. The buildings are the color of lightning, of rain, of a distant storm. This is a land of plenty, of eternal life, but she- a blood drenched wraith- contains the most color out of anything here.

Athene steers her through crowds of immortals, and Hecate knows she could put names to some of them if she tried. But Athene pulls her forward inexorably, and all she can remember is that deer from so long ago. 

When they find Artemis at last she is in a forest of trees wrought from ice. No animals would live here, there is nothing to hunt. Hecate finally understands why she leaves Olympus at every opportunity. Why she would tarry on an island, with a mortal girl. Artemis is sitting by a pond that is much paler than moonlight. The branches that frame her a crystalline, and delicate. Athene leaves her here. 

“I don’t regret dying,” Hecate says, after she and Artemis have been silent for a long time. Artemis's hands have been spiraling through the pond. The water ripples and shivers at her touch. 

“I brought you here because I want to offer you a choice,” Artemis says. “I have never let you choose before, have I?”

“No…” Hecate looks down at gore-covered shift. Her toes are incongruously pink against the white clouds. She looks dead and alive all at once. “What am I choosing between?”

“I will send you to Elysium where you will live in utter contentment for all eternity. I want nothing less than that for you.” Artemis rises to her feet, and all at once, Hecate realizes she has water from the pool cupped between her hands. “Or, I can make you a goddess. And you … you and I will be equals. Sometimes we will fight over the fate of the world I want nothing more than to see what you would do with that power

Hecate looks upwards, the way she often has done to beseech the gods. But then she realizes there is nothing up there. No gods, nothing at all. There’s a kind of emptiness that makes the soul shrivel and die. 

The world is at their feet. The disintegrating, war-ravage plagued, where humans pray to deities that don’t know what it’s like to fear death. 

Her siblings are down there, trying to make a life out of destruction.

“I’ll become a god,” she says, and, though she feels very little at all, Artemis’s eyes fill with some boundless emotion. It’s the excitement, of a predator on the hunt, but it’s also the delight of a young lover climaxing for the first time. 

Hecate bends over, and drinks the ambrosia from Artemis’s fingers. It tastes like nothing, and yet it’s too much. She wants to spit it out, but forces herself to keep going. Ichor fills her body, slowly creeping towards her heart. She sees what she will be. She sees what Hecate the goddess will become; a patron to the city-less as they flee their dying empires. A protector for all who travel the roads that spider across the world’s surface. Artemis protects those who venture into the wild woods, but Hecate will protect those who travel because they must. Because they have also been stripped of home and choice. She will watch over them as cities continue to fall, as people forget how to write, as they retreat to smaller villagers. Many of them will listen to the bards' tales of today's wars, and these stories will shift and change from generation to generation. But they will pulse with life, and distant strangers will hear the raw truth that lies beneath.

Iphigenia will become subsumed into Artemis. Hecate will be herself.

When it’s done, she kisses Artemis’s cold hands again and again. They sink down into the translucent, sparkling grass, and she runs her fingers up and down Artemis’s abdomen. She glows with a light that is beyond light. Until now, this sight would have annihilated Hecate. Now it embraces her, without holding her hostage.

"You didn't drink all of the ambrosia," Artemis says.

"No. I wanted to be a goddess, but I will keep my human heart."


End file.
